


singularity

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Kinda, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sexual Content, bc this is their most overused trope and yet i have not used, what a disgrace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: More often than sometimes, in the aftermath, Sousuke wants more.





	singularity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hetahe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetahe/gifts).



> written for karo, bc she does this to me ;;; as the title suggests, this was the song behind her inspiration, and therefore mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8npDG2ulKQ

It always gets quiet after. They never talk much, because the reason for speaking, or acknowledging, is over. Sousuke’s pretty sure that’s why, anyway.

Haruka gets quiet after. He’s quiet now; he’s rolled away and tangled in the sheets, head tipped away to stare out through the window. Or maybe his eyes are closed. The thing is, Sousuke can’t tell from this angle, and doesn’t have a good enough excuse to look—the sex hasn’t proven to be a good excuse to do anything else. Either way, the window is open, and Tokyo’s lights dance like glitter over Haruka’s skin. 

That part’s new. But Sousuke’s gotten used to thinking in metaphors.

(Does that matter?)

He’s still warm. He thinks he might be warmer if he could pull himself closer to the body beside him, but that’s out of the question. Haruka would ask him why, and maybe he’d accept any answer Sousuke would give him—but Sousuke doesn’t really have an answer to give in the first place. He doesn’t know where the desire comes from. Or if he does, he doesn’t want to know it anymore.

There’s a feeling that comes with this, not quite like pain, but like the absence of it. A ghost of pain, not healed, but removed altogether. He doesn’t think that’s better—in fact the emptiness it comes with is worse. Has he managed to feel whole at all, throughout this?

Haruka’s chest rises and falls, as does the black shadow it paints across the sheets. His body shifts closer, and surely now he’s asleep. His knee bumps directly into Sousuke’s, and Sousuke is hit with the inexplicable urge to hook their legs together, or to touch the part of his stomach that isn’t covered by the sheets, just to see if he can raise goosebumps.

This part isn’t so new.  But he doesn't want to start wondering right now, while he's still here, when he's basking in the aftermath. That's dangerous. That's what got him here. 

(What gets Haruka here?)

Only sometimes, wondering isn’t so bad. It isn’t bad when he can pretend—when Haruka’s mouth is slick against his shoulder, for one. Or when he’s moving inside of Sousuke, eyes burning with crystal fire, hands sinking into the mattress. In those moments he thinks it’s normal to wonder, because he thinks intimacy comes along with this deeper kind of desire sometimes. Or something. It’s entirely possible that he’s just making things up now.

It’s worse when they’re not together, in this sense or in any sense. He can’t make many excuses then. The ability to count off someone’s erogenous zones from memory is a bizarre one, Sousuke’s come to find. But when he’s standing in the bleachers or on a sidewalk, watching Haruka watch someone else, like Makoto or Rin, he thinks less about counting moans and more about counting smiles.

(He counted two of them today.)

But he wouldn’t pass up any chance to do this again, either—he hasn’t yet, since they started. Haruka has decided against it once, so far, on the tail end of an argument with Makoto. He’d come through Sousuke’s door like a storm and straddled him in the living room, spread hands under his shirt, but had collapsed on top of him before he could get it off, breath coming in terrible heaves. Sousuke didn’t ask, and didn’t push. That’s the only time he’s gotten to hold him.

“You have pretty eyes,” he’d said once, also, not too long ago, solely because he’d wanted to try it. 

Haruka didn’t give him much of a response, anyway. He’d pulled a flat look from the pillow below, curled both hands around Sousuke’s hips, opened his mouth and said, “You’re not the first to say that.”

But that was fine—if Sousuke wasn’t the first in line for this he was first to see him bare and shivering, biting down on a gasp, and Sousuke will wear that medal to his grave. Better if it were real, because it would give him something tangible to fit between his teeth rather than the phantom shape of the word  _ love _ .

Well, then. Sousuke sighs—he’s not getting any sleep, anyway.

He fits his hand over Haruka’s thigh, slips it unabashedly to the inside and squeezes. Haruka tenses and turns, and looks at Sousuke like he’s the one who’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“What,” he says, with no inflection to indicate it’s a question. 

It might not be one. Sousuke tugs him closer, slips his hand over Haruka’s front and feels each muscle pull tight on the way. Belatedly, there is a thought:  _so he was awake, after all. _ He kisses high up on Haruka’s side, where the skin is clear of marks, then drags his fingers down until Haruka squirms and grunts.

“Sousuke.”

“Can’t sleep,” Sousuke says casually, lips on Haruka’s stomach. He slips his free arm over his chest, drags the hand already moving up one thigh and down the other. 

“So you had to keep me from sleeping, too.”

But his voice falters. Sousuke meets his eyes, and fits his hand around him, watching his mouth twitch. “Most people would be more enthused at the prospect of a third orgasm.”

Haruka flushes, then slips down a bit, spreads his legs and says, “Fourth.”

Sousuke huffs. Maybe that’s another thing he should keep score of. He drags his mouth over Haruka’s hip, then over where he’s holding him in his palm—Haruka moans. “Pretty quick to get started for a fourth.”

“It’s you,” Haruka says, bluntly. It takes a moment for the words to sink in. 

Sousuke turns to look at him, somewhat startled. He can’t think of anything to say, so he doesn’t try, just stares until he's run out of reason to and Haruka starts to tremble. Then his hand reaches for Sousuke's hair and grips it, firmly.

And he says, more characteristically, “I'll die of old age at this rate.”

The lights outside are still on his cheeks, but now they gather like stars. Sousuke thinks that maybe this is the first night they’ll stay. A first time, not for them, but for continual light.

Haruka’s knees pull up around Sousuke’s shoulders, and the shadows beside him lift with his back. And he breaks Sousuke’s name into pieces in the humid night air. Sousuke wonders if these are metaphors or similes—then Haruka’s head pitches backward and it doesn’t matter at all. 

Why would it, ever?


End file.
